Bible: 1John 4: 7-16

Main verse: 1JOHN 4: 8 – He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

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– Love is essential to human life. Everyone needs to love and to be loved. But not all of us actually know what true love is. Many sadness and misery of human life comes from the lack of love or do not know how to love truly.

– The confusion about love happens because we love in many different ways from each other and each one of us has a different view of how love should be.

– That is why we hear people say “I love you” all the time, only to break up just as quickly. We often hear people say “I cannot live without you,” but then a few years later, they could not stand the sight of each other up to the point where they hate each other and fought bitterly in court.

– The reality of human life shows us that we don’t know much about love. In many occasions, when a person says ‘I love you,’ he just disguises his love for a physical relationship.

– That kind of relationship is just a small part of love. It will never be able to substitute true love. That’s why we see “beautiful” people break up all the time, even if they were considered “gorgeous,” and “better-looking” than the average person.

– Physical attractive is just a small part of love. True love has many characteristics like being caring, compassionate, understanding, patient, morally correct, responsible, self sacrificing, adapting, changing and much more.

– That’s why we sometimes see people love each other passionately during their early years, only to break up to find someone else who was “younger.” Some of them tried to explain that they wanted to have someone who understands them more than their past love, but it’s a lie. A couple who has a big age gap would hardly understand each other.

– The funny thing is that some people do not understand their children, but think that they can understand new younger spouses who are at the same age as their children and vice versa. Those are examples of people who use the words ‘love’ and ‘understanding’ as covers to conceal their physical desires. That’s why those relationships will usually not last long.

– If we look into the Bible, we will find out what defines true love. We can use them as standards in this life. With the Bible’ standards on love, we can examine the way we love each other. We can also recognize and distinguish other people’s love for us to know which one is true and which one is not.

– As the Bible clearly states that whoever does not love does not know God (1John 4: 8), but as all human beings suppose that they know what love is, does that mean all of them know God? No, for if they perceived that love was what they thought about, like in poems, music, books and movies, so unbelievers really knew God as Christians did?

– Even there were some Christians who did not know anything about God, as in the time of Paul:

1CORINTHIANS 15: 34 – Awake to righteousness, and do not sin; for some do not have the knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame.

– Although this verse was written because some Christians had sinned in Paul’s time and their actions were proof that they did not know God, but concerning to true love, some Christians in present days still do not know exactly what true love is because they do not really know God and His unchanged principles about love.

– As some Christians do not know God and understand what true love is, how can unbelievers actually know what is love? According to the Bible, love is defined by many principles that never change through times. And we will look at them one by one.

– First, true love is a binding love. It has many meanings, but we will only consider one of them today. A binding love means that when people are in love, they never want to be separated from each other, even when they have jobs or other important duties demanding them to be separated from each other temporarily. They always long for the day to be together again.

– Jesus had set up an example for this standard of true love when He said that He will surely come back to Earth to get His children and keep us with Him forever:

JOHN 14: 3 – And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.

– Because the love that Jesus loves us is true love, even when He must return to heaven after His ministry on Earth, He is still with us in the form of the Holy Spirit:

MATTHEW 28: 20 – teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

– This standard of true love can be applied both in the love between husbands and wives, and the love between parents and children.

– We can use this standard of true love to examine our hearts when we love someone. If we feel it’s okay to be separated from those we love and not have the longing to be back with them as soon as possible, the love we have for them is not true love. It’s the same for others who claims they love us.

– There are many instances in which people had affairs when they temporary separated from their spouses. Many of them blamed the weakness of the flesh, but if they actually loved their spouses with true love, the affairs could not happen, because true love is stronger than death itself:

SONG OF SOLOMON 8: 6 – Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; For love is as strong as death.

– Human beings cannot win over death, and temptations cannot win over true love and make the person who has it committing adultery. That’s why God order Christians to separate right away with spouses who committed those sins, because they did not love us truly. Lingering in that kind of love only makes us miserable and getting hurt sooner or later.

MATTHEW 5: 32 – But I say to you that whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery.

– Remember, this command is applied for both men and women, both husbands and wives, as everyone is equal before God.

– With this in mind, we must understand that when the people we love want to separate, it means they don’t love us anymore, or the love they had for us before was not true love. We should not try to get them back. It is a waste of time.

– If we love each other with the same love that Jesus had for us, there is nothing that will make us want to separate from the ones we love, except death or when our jobs demand that we have to be away for some time. For example, when a soldier is deployed overseas for a period of time.

ROMANS 8: 35 – Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

– And one more important thing to remember is true love never dies, as we look up to Jesus for example:

JOHN 13: 1 – Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.

1CORINTHIANS 13: 8 – Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.

– So, when people say to their spouses that they love them anymore, it means they have never loved them with true love from the beginning. Knowing that will make us Christians at peace if we someday faced that situation. God wants us to live wisely.

– The binding love is the same for husband and wives, and for parents and children because God has set a standard for it. He wants His children to be with Him in the heavenly kindom forever and Jesus wants the Church (Christians) to be with Him, too.

– So, spiritually speaking, as we want to be with God in His heaven, we also should try our best to include our children with us and with Him, because we surely love them with the parental true love.

– May God help us to love each other, as wives and husbands, or as parents and children, with the true love according to His standards. May the true love that we have for our love ones makes us being better for each other and for God in this life and for eternity. Amen.